INCOBRA - Increasing International Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Brazil and the European Union

The São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP

FAPESP is a public foundation, funded by the taxpayer in the State of São Paulo, with the mission to support research projects in higher education and research institutions, in all fields of knowledge. São Paulo has a population of forty million and generates 32% of Brazil’s GNP. The constitution of the State establishes that 1% of all state taxes belong to the foundation and the government transfers these funds monthly. The stability of the funding and the autonomy of the foundation allow for an efficient management of the resources that has had a sizable impact: while São Paulo has 22% of the Brazilian population and 30% of the scientists with a doctorate in the country, the state responds for 45% of the country’s scientific articles published in international journals.

The foundation works in close contact with the scientific community: all proposals are peer reviewed with the help of area panels composed of active researchers. Besides funding research in all fields, the foundation supports large research programs in Biodiversity, Bioenergy, Global Climate Change, and in e-Science.

FAPESP’s expenditures in 2015 were R$ 1.189 billion (approximately $PPP 629 million). 40% of the expenditures supported fundamental research; 7.4% supported research infrastructure; and 52% supported application oriented research, in many cases performed in Small Businesses or in joint research performed by academia and industry. The percentage invested in applied research has been growing in recent years, consistently with the foundation’s mandate to foster the scientific and technological development in the State of São Paulo.

FAPESP maintains cooperation agreements with national and international research funding agencies, higher educational and research institutions and business enterprises. The international cooperation covers a broad range of countries and agencies including the UK Research Councils, the Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR) in France, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in Germany, the European Commission, and NSF, NIH, and DoE in the U.S..

 FAPESP offers many programs to support foreign scientists willing to work in research institutions in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. These include: post-doctoral fellowships, young investigator awards and visiting researcher grants.